Talk for the UWS Bankstown MusAllah, 31 May 2007.

Can Muslims Join Socialist Groups?

Dr. Ali White

Every week on this campus,

socialist groups set up bookstalls
and pester students to buy their newspapers,
read their leaflets and attend their endless meetings.

Despite the inherently atheistic nature [explain] of the socialist groups,

Muslims still continue to get fooled by these people.

We Muslims tend to automatically assume the best about people.

So it might seem harsh or rude of me to suggest today

that the socialists represent great dangers to Muslims.

But I want to speak today about that why that is precisely the case.

Each and every one of these groups

present a tremendous danger to the ’Ummah,
and to the iman and aqidah of individual Muslims.

I remind myself first,

and then all of you sisters and brothers,
that I am not an ’alim, or mujtahid,
who is qualified to issue Islamic verdicts, of fatwas.

Nevertheless,
based on my knowledge of Islam on the one hand,
and my professional training as a Political Scientist (my PhD is in Political Science),
not to mention my experience in socialist groups before I was a Muslim,
I want to suggest today that it must be absolutely haram to join these organisations.
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Some scholars of Islam have said precisely this, in fact.
Superficially, the Marxist groups can appear quite appealing to young Muslims.

After all,
these socialists all oppose the war in Iraq
and denounce US attempts to impose its global hegemony.

The socialist groups love the Muslims.

They are especially supportive of young hijabi sisters. Or so it seems.

But these groups are not as they seem.

The end result of Muslims joining socialist groups is,

at the very least,
that we give these criminals some credibility in the eyes of others.

After all,
if people who are obviously Muslims are working in or with these groups,
non-Muslims will think that
the socialists’ claims to support the Muslims against oppression
really must be true.

In reality,
history proves that the socialists only cynically use Muslims,
in order to achieve their own,
criminal and Godless ends.

At the very worst,

Muslims who join these groups end up themselves adopting the materialistic,
Godless philosophy; they lose their iman altogether.
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A quick look at
the history of the ideas
and actual practices of the socialists
towards Islam and Muslims shows their true nature,
as enemies of Allah (SWT).

What the socialists believe

According to Karl Marx

— the founder of Marxism (modern socialism or communism),
Marxism is totally committed to the eradication of religious belief.

Marx said that religion of any sort is the ‘opium of the proletariat [working class]’.

That is,
religion is a type of drug,
which fogs the brains of workers,
so that they will put up with any sort of injustice or oppression.

Instead,
Marxism prescribes the outlook known as materialism,
which claims that only things that can be
physically seen, heard, felt or touched
are real.

So, they say (nastrafroulah),

that Almighty Allah is not only a complete mirage,
but actually an illusion created by rich men,
to fool the poor and exploited!
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The socialists’ real historical record

If you speak to socialists,

and they know you’re a practicing Muslim,
they will tell you that their movement
has a proud record of ‘supporting’ Islam and Muslims.

Nothing is further from the truth. (X2)

The Russian Marxists’ relations

with their own Muslim citizens
and the global engagement of the Marxists with Muslims
are always cited by present-day Marxists,
as shining examples of how of Islam and Marxism
are not at odds with each other.

Yet, wherever the Muslims merged with the Marxists,

disaster followed for the’Ummah.

Disaster followed for the’Ummah.

Immediately after the Marxists took power

in the Russian Revolution of 1917,
they worked hard to entice Muslims everywhere into their ranks.

From Central Asia to South-East Asia,

the Marxists exerted themselves to recruit Muslims in large numbers.

In every case,
the Marxists were only pursuing their own interests
— and succeeded in using the Muslims for their purposes
(Bennigsen & Lemercier-Quelquejay (1967); Carr (1978) & Rorlich [no date]).

For their part,

the Marxists were only pragmatically adapting to unfavourable circumstances.
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There was a tremendous cost to the ’Ummah for this serious error.

Because many Muslim activists were drawn into the Communist Parties,
Muslims were prevented
from putting forward the only response
that would have truly served their interests:
a Muslim program of action,
based on the Qur’an and Sunnah.

These days,
it is fashionable to blame the anti-Muslim atrocities
committed by Russian Marxists all on the ‘errors’ and ‘excesses’
committed by Joseph Stalin.

It is true that Joseph Stalin was a monstrous dictator,

thoroughly devoid of any saving graces.

But this should not blind us to the fact

that it was the founder of Soviet Russia, Lenin,
who sent military units to devastate the city of Kokand,
in Muslim-majority Turkestan (in Central Asia), in 1919.

As soon as the Communists consolidated their own position,

and no longer needed the Muslims,
Sultan Galiev
and other so-called ‘Muslim communists’
were first marginalised and then physically eliminated.

From the very start of the Russian Communist regime,

the Russian Communist Party conducted propaganda
through its state-funded ‘Union of Godless Zealots’.

With the physical liquidation

of Sultan Galiev and other so-called ‘Muslim communists’,
this work was now accelerated...
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The same history was repeated in each and every socialist country.

The socialists’ modern history

The Marxist organisations are on record stating

that the reason they oppose a US invasion of the Islamic Republic of Iran
is because that would set back the ‘democracy movement’ in that country.

(That is, they do not want the US to invade, but they do support ‘regime change’!)

Muslims now need to learn and relearn the lessons of history.

Marxism and the Marxist movements

are experts in chameleon-like adaptation to changing conditions
— while never abandoning their hostility to religion,
merely biding their time,
until circumstances enable them to fight religion openly once again.

In the more recent era,

this has been demonstrated by the speed
with which the Marxist groups
have utterly changed their policies
and abandoned supposed ‘principles’,
in order to cash-in on new opportunities to boost their numbers.

We only have time for one example – buit it’s a real doozy!

One Marxist group at the University of Sydney

rather bizarrely illustrated
the gross opportunism of these parasites, in mid-2004.

This group decided to hold publicising a forum ‘opposing’ France’s repression of hijabis.
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The reverse side of their poster publicising this forum
advertised an earlier meeting,
to promote homosexuality and defend ‘gay liberation’!

I saw this with my own eyes.

On the one hand the ‘defence’ of Muslims against repression,

while on the other the defence of homosexuality.

Precisely like common criminals,

the Marxists are completely without any sense of right and wrong.

And,
just like mafia hit men,
there’s nothing personal here;
it’s just good business.

A large proportion of the Marxist left

supported the establishment of Israel in the late 1940s.

Most of the Marxist groups

supported the brutal Russian invasion
of Afghanistan in December 1979,
as an act of ‘civilisation’,
against the supposed ‘barbarism’ of Islam.

When the War on Islam

created opportunities for these chameleons
to recruit Muslims in the present era,
these same groups shamelessly portray themselves
as the best ‘defenders’ of Muslims and sometimes even of Islam!

Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to re-live them.

Either we act like Muslims or we act like something else.

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In other words,
either the Shahadat enters every pore of our being,
so that it animates our every thought and action,
or we are guided by kufr in our everyday life.

For that is precisely what we are doing,

if we act from any other standpoint than that of Almighty Allah.

Islam is not just praying and fasting

and the remainder of the five pillars;
it is also righteous deeds.

But these deeds also must be guided by Allah’s perfect laws, not those of man.

Let us learn from the example of our Holy Prophet (S).

For 13 years he toiled against enormous difficulties in Mecca,

to build a movement based solely on the Shahadat,
when he could have taken the easier path
of building a secular, Godless, movement based on
‘class struggle’, tribal or national solidarity, or some other concern.

He knew that his patient struggle

for a movement based on the Shahadat,
although harder to construct,
would eventually result
in the only movement capable
of demolishing all forms of injustice,
because it was based on the plan of no other than Almighty Allah.

The law and plan of Almighty Allah are invincible.

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Dependence upon Him
only creates an attitude of peace and contentment,
purges the mind of subtle passions and jealousy, envy and greed,
and keeps away the ideas
of resorting to base means for achieving success.

On the other hand,

the atheistic Marxists
— who believe only in this material world —
consider success and failure
to come solely from their own efforts,
or by the help of earthly powers,
without taking Almighty Allah’s grace and will
into consideration.

That is why
their ‘principles’ are as changeable as Melbourne weather
and why their own internal party life
is plagued with mutual suspicion, power struggles, gossip
and even violence against each other.

To achieve success,
they never hesitate to have recourse to bribery, flattery, conspiracy,
and other kinds of base means.

Wherever the Muslims merged with the Marxists, disaster followed for our ’Ummah.

Either La ilaha illa Allah Muhammadun rasul Allah

is our standard and lived perspective,
or we are opening ourselves up to failure in both this world and the akhirah.

Those aware of the history of Muslim/Marxist relations

can have no illusions;
we cannot and should not join their organisations.
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Almighty Allah has warned us about uniting with unbelievers:

[3.28] Let not the believers take the unbelievers for awliyya (advisers and
guardians) rather than believers; and whoever does this, he shall have nothing of
(the guardianship of) Allah, but you should guard yourselves against them,
guarding carefully; and Allah makes you cautious of (retribution from) Himself; and
to Allah is the eventual coming.

And in Surat al-Baqarah He warns:

[2:217] and they will not cease fighting with you until they turn you back from your
religion, if they can…

We ignore His advice at great peril.

Marxists give game away

Occasionally, the Marxists admit what they really think about religion.

Green Left Weekly (No. 472, November 21, 2001) states:

Religion is a means of explaining natural and social processes which are beyond
the control or comprehension of the masses. In Socialism and Religion Lenin
points out: “Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to
be submissive and patient while here on Earth, and to take comfort in the hope of
a heavenly reward.”

The paper adds:

According to Lenin, the best form of anti-religious propaganda is the advance of

scientific knowledge. Religion will not be defeated by propaganda alone, but will
fall as the working class fights, in a united, organised and conscious way, the rule
of capital, which is the root of religion.

An article in the journal International Socialism (Spring 2004 edition: 5-6),

contains an article entitled ‘The Hijab, Racism and the State’.

This article shows why they currently feel that it’s important to offer us ‘support’.
(Italics added by myself):
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The article cites the view
of the notorious contemporary Orientalist, Olivier Roy, approvingly:

Most of the young are radicalised in the West. Those drawn to radical Islamism
are mostly ‘born again Muslims’. They have become Islamised in the West. What
they contest is something very modern: US imperialism, capitalism, etc. In a word,
they have taken over [the] domain of intellectual debate which 30 years ago
belonged to the proletarian left, 20 years ago to ‘direct action’ and a century ago to
the ‘Bonnot Gang’ [anarchist bank-robbers!], etc. We are talking here of a domain
of militant debate abandoned by the extreme left. It is the only one available to
these young people who wish to ‘break’ the system.

The Marxists then comment on Olivier Roy’s observations:

We need a coherent left wing answer to the discrimination from which Muslims,
and more particularly Muslim women, suffer… We need to unite the majority of the
exploited and oppressed, if we are to give ourselves the means to transform the
world. In constructing this unity we can forge a genuine political alternative (one
which Islam does not offer). It can be the motor for radically overthrowing the
society.

The Marxists clearly only want to use Muslims.

It’s obvious that they do not share our goals,

since they assert that Islam has no ‘genuine political alternative’ and because,
when all is said and done,
religion is still ‘the opium of the people’ for them,
as they continue to inform us.

In other words, the Marxists

still imagine that their narrow secular model
is the way to vanquish oppression and that religion — including Islam —
can only be a social and political drug,
something that dulls the senses and
anaesthetises political willpower.
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Despite the collapse of the principal states based on this ideology,
the Marxists have still not grasped
that the root of all oppression and injustice in the world
is that humanity has cast God out of society.

Allah (SWT) warns us in Surat ar-Rum

against the ruinous environmental, social and political consequences
of Godless materialism:

[30:41] Since they have become oblivious of God, corruption has appeared on
land and in the sea as an outcome of what men’s hands have wrought; and so He
will let them taste [the evil of] some of their doings, so that they might return [to the
right path].

All the leftist groups are ultimately going nowhere.

Certainly, we need to treat individual leftists with politeness and respect,

inviting them to Islam,
as the only framework of truth and human liberation,
while keeping their organisations at arm’s length.

References

Bennigsen, Alexandre & Lemercier-Quelquejay, Chantal (1967) Islam in the Soviet Union,
London, Pall Mall Press.

Carr, E. H. (1978) A History of Soviet Russia, London & Basingstoke, Macmillan, Vol 3.

Green Left Weekly, No. 472, November 21, 2001.

International Socialism, Spring 2004 edition.

Rorlich, Ayse Azade (no date), ‘Mirsaid Sultan Galiev and National Communism’ at the
Web site Yeni Türkiye, at the following URL: http://yeniturkiye.com/.